Getting it Right!

It’s been 2 years since 1000 hearing aids were distributed to children and adults with hearing impairment in hopes that this will help them progress in the world that prefers sound to function and communicate. A large hearing aid manufacturing foundation goes around the world providing hearing aids to Africa, South America, Asia and far flung countries were nutrition, lack of awareness about hearing disorders, decease and poor hygiene contribute to conductive or sensorineural hearing loss or both. Was it all a numbers game?

Did they bask in their glory when they drop millions of hearing aids to show their patrons and donors, government grants and individual contributors they had used the funds wisely? Alas, it is so short sighted to dispose of these hearing aids only to find out that without follow-up or monitoring, the results of such endeavor only reveal that a large percentage of these hearing aids have not been used at all.

A meeting with Rotaractors, a speech therapist and donors from Holland, Monique and Rolf, brings forth the comprehensive plan to do this right, to do this all over again. This time not with a large organization but with people and organizations that understand that sustainability comes from monitoring that ensures long term benefits make for meaningful change in a beneficiary's life.

Monique and Rolf are currently building a hostel for 25 impoverished deaf students at the Kavre School for the Hearing Impaired plus living quarters for the hostel administrator. This frees up classrooms so the school can continue to provide grades 1-10 + 2 courses to the deaf community in Banepa.

Trifc.org continues to sponsor deaf children out there and provided the deaf women's cooperative the marketing process for the embroidered note cards. With funds, new audiograms will be performed on the children to determine who will benefit from hearing aids. Dr Ruchie will donate her time to be part of the audiogram testing and will continue to monitor the development and adoption of the hearing aids for the children who will receive them.

We'll get it right this time, make the necessary changes to the program, elicit the help of the children's parents and together understand what exactly can and cannot be done for them. It takes a village to raise a child, it takes a several more to work together to combat ignorance, greed, short sightedness. We all need to listen to that voice inside of us when a louder voice seems to want to drown us out.